Arthur C. Clarke - Space Cadet Quiz

Answer: Minehead beach and the sea

Arthur had a great affinity with the sand and the sea throughout his life. He was quoted as saying the only place he ever felt completely relaxed is by the edge of the sea. His grandmother, whom he visited often, lived only a quarter mile from the beach and the Bristol Channel.

His short story 'Transience' gives three descriptions of a lone boy on a beach in three vastly different times and could well reflect his time spent on Minehead beach.

Answer: Farming

Their second farm, Ballifants, which they took over in the early 1920s, was his childhood home. His father only worked this farm for less than a year before he was invalided, dying in 1931. Arthur was then only 13. To supplement the farm income Arthur's mother took in guests, arranged riding lessons, knitted gloves and bred Cairn Terriers. Arthur, eldest of her four children, assisted her and also had several part-time jobs while still attending school.

His prolific output as an author no doubt reflects the work ethic of his farm days.

Answer: The moon

Arthur's telescopes were lenses in cardboard tubes. He recalls filling many a scrap book up with sketches of the moon and its craters. From his story 'Earthlight' this extract exemplifies this, 'He remembered his first glimpse of the Sinus Iridium (a well known feature of our moon), through the little homemade telescope he had built when he was a boy'.

Answer: Each of these

Arthur built many a rocket, at first for the amusement of his family, making gunpowder from a school textbook recipe. The refractor telescopes used various lenses that he salvaged from different sources and inserted into cardboard tubes. Crystal sets he constructed from parts that cost him a shilling were sold for two and sixpence, the profits often spent on sci-fi magazines.

Answer: A pedal-powered knitting machine

Several of the Kille family influenced a young Arthur. One son collected sci-fi magazines which Arthur could borrow; there was a son-in-law, an archaeologist, who gave Arthur fossils and a mammoth's tooth and Grandma Kille who owned and operated a well oiled, many geared, pedal-powered knitting machine. Arthur later wrote 'My own interest in science owes much to the fascinating hardware that Mrs. Kille operated with effortless skill'.

Answer: Wrote for the school magazine

Some of Arthur's first published works, often written under a nom de plume, appeared in the 'Huish Magazine'. Produced each term, the small editorial staff (including Arthur) would meet most weeks with the school's English master to discuss content. Over 30 years later, Arthur's dedication in his volume of short stories 'The Nine Billion Names of God' (1967) is to that English master.

It reads "To 'Mitty' (Captain E.B.Mitford), who encouraged my initial scribblings at Huish's Grammar School, 1930-1936 and became my first editor."

Answer: W. Olaf Stapledon

In his biography, Arthur related how he could still recall where it was on the shelves. This book gave Arthur a 'cosmic scale of time and place'. His biographer considers 'Last and First Men' to have influenced Arthur's first novel, ('Against the Fall of Night') which Arthur started at Huish School and finally had published in 'Startling Stories' in 1948. Arthur corresponded with or met all four authors mentioned before he was 30, including a boozy night in an Oxford pub with Lewis and Tolkien.

Answer: British Interplanetary Society

Arthur Joined the BIS age 16. After finishing school at 18 he got a civil service job in London. He already knew some BIS members who had visited the farm and had pen pals who were BIS members but London was where the BIS met. Eventually the BIS meetings took place in Arthur's rented flat.

He also started writing articles and publicity material for the BIS magazine. After the Second World War, Arthur became chairman of the BIS for two separate periods.

Answer: Royal Air Force

Joining the RAF in 1941 and being demobbed on 21st June, 1946 Arthur was assigned to a radar team in August 1943. American scientists, including Luis W. Alvarez (later a Nobel Prize winner), arrived in England to demonstrate a 'ground control approach' radar system.

After the Americans left, Arthur was one of the team who maintained and demonstrated the GCA system. This contact gave Arthur a deep insight into radar and microwave technology.

Answer: Geo-Static Communication Satellites

Part of the letter reads 'An "artificial satellite" at the correct distance from the earth would make one revolution every 24 hours; i.e., it would remain stationary above the same spot...' Arthur expanded on this in a thesis he typed in July 1945. He submitted this also to 'Wireless World' who published it in October 1945 under the title 'Extra-Terrestrial Relays'. The subtitle was a question: 'Can Rocket Stations Give World-wide Coverage?' A Geosynchronous orbit is often called a 'Clarke Orbit' and that region around Earth, some 42000 km's from Earth's centre, where telecom satellites sit, is often called the 'Clarke Belt'.
The letter can be viewed at
http://lakdiva.org/clarke/1945ww/1945ww_058.jpg